Regions To Be CheerfulRule changes endorsed by this week’s NSW Labor Council Annual General Meeting reorganising the South Coast Labor Council into as a regional branch council should not be under-estimated.

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Howard Pushes Pay Cut

Australia’s lowest paid workers are set to cop a real wage cut of $2.10 per week under a proposal supported by the Howard government.

The $10 a week wage rise proposed by the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry was compared with the $7 000 an hour spent by Howard in commuting from Sydney to Canberra by ALP Workplace Relations spokesperson Craig Emerson.

Emerson, addressing the NSW Labor Council's annual general meeting, pointed to Howard's excesses that included spending $15 000 on a wine consultant.

The meeting also formally adopted the establishment of the South Coast Trades and Labor Council as a Regional Branch Council of the NSW Labor Council.

"The reason it hasn't happened before was because of the cold war hostility between north and south," says South Coast Trades and Labor Council Secretary Arthur Rorris "Without the whole process of de-factionalisation the whole process would not have been possible."

Labor Council Secretary John Robertson hailed the move and looked forward to rolling the model out to other regions in NSW.